Fufu: the pound, the patience, the pull

Fufu is not difficult. It is just honest about what it costs you. There is no clever shortcut, no quiet cheat, and no way to hurry it that does not show up in the bowl.

What it actually is

At its simplest, fufu is cassava and unripe plantain, boiled soft and then pounded together with a little of the cooking water until the two stop being themselves and become one smooth, elastic, faintly sweet dough. That is the whole ingredient list.

The work is in the pounding. You strike, you turn, you strike again, and you keep the rhythm going long enough that the mixture goes from grainy to glossy. Stop too early and you get something lumpy and stiff. Keep going and it turns: it starts to pull, it takes on a sheen, and it holds together when you lift it.

Reading a good one

You can judge fufu by touch before you ever taste it. Press a ball between your fingers. It should give, then spring back, the way a good piece of dough does. It should not crumble, and it should not be so tight that it sits in your stomach like a stone.

That texture is the point, because fufu is a delivery system. You pinch off a piece, you dip it into soup, and the fufu picks up just enough of what it touches without dissolving into it.

The soups worth making it for

Fufu is only ever as good as what you put it in.

• Light soup, thin and bright with chilli and tomato, usually with goat or chicken
• Groundnut soup, thick and nutty, the colour of wet earth
• Palm nut soup, rich and red, with fish or chicken
• Abunuabunu, the green soup of cocoyam leaves, earthy and bitter in the best way

Every one of these is a different meal with the same fufu in the middle of it, which is why nobody in Ghana considers four soups excessive.

Eating it

Eat with your right hand. Pinch, dip, swallow without chewing more than you have to. It is not a dish that rewards daintiness.

Ours comes packed to travel, so the fufu stays soft and the soup stays separate until you are ready to put the two together.